Driven
by Ruby Friday
Summary: There was a time when Leah was too cold, and Jacob was too young, and both were far too deeply in love with other people. Now Leah's warmed up, Jacob's grown up, and the others don't matter any more. AU, Blackwater.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This fic takes place six months after Edward and Bella's wedding, but they have never returned to Forks, and the rest of the Cullens are gone; therefore, Jacob has never met Renesmee and the divide between the werewolves has never occurred. Enjoy!**

**Oh also, I don't own Twilight or any characters or anything like that. **

When Jacob gets home from Sam and Emily's at eight o' clock on Sunday night, Leah is perched on his front step, meditatively smoking a cigarette.

"You know those are going to kill you, right?" Jacob asks, deciding against asking her what in God's name she's doing on his porch.

"Die young, stay pretty," she says with a wry smile. "I baked a blueberry pie. It's on your counter, if you'd like some."

Involuntarily Jacob makes a face. "_You _made a pie?" It wasn't something you thought of Leah doing. You thought of Leah smoking, drinking heavily in an impassioned but fruitless effort to obliterate herself. You thought of Leah yelling and throwing punches and sulking. And maybe having angry, violent sex. But you tried not to think of that too often.

Leah scowls. "Nothing to what Emily could make, of course, but I got the recipe from her. So it won't kill you, you ungrateful jackass." She takes a long drag off the death-stick pinched between her slim fingers. "It's the least I could do for Billy, after he's been helping me out."

Jacob sits down next to her. He hasn't said much to Leah in a few months, or seen her, for that matter; since the departure, apparently permanent, of the leeches, there haven't been many patrols. "You mean you went to Sam's and saw Emily of your own free will? And... Got her pie recipe?" He snorts at the image.

"Yeah. Figured it was time I let bygones be bygones. I've been doing better, you know."

She sucks on her smoke so violently that Jacob is sure she'll start coughing, but she doesn't. Instead, she says, just a little jerkily, "I suppose you've heard the news?"

His first instinct is to deny it, or say simply, "What news?" But from the tone of her voice and the way she's looking at the ground, he knows immediately – Leah always looks you right in the eye, and it's disconcerting that she isn't. "Yeah," he says in a low voice. "Yeah, I heard it. I'm sorry, Leah."

"It's okay, I'm okay, I think," she says, picking up a stick and starting to draw in the dirt with it. "Just hearing it was a little like a punch in the throat. You know how I feel, don't you?"

He nods. Yes, he knows how she feels. He's mostly over Bella; she's been gone a pretty long time, but he'd probably be a wreck if he heard that she was having a baby with Edward. He tries not to talk about her, though.

"We're in the same boat, you and I," she muses.

"All right, there, Leah. Let's not go too far with this sharing stuff. "

"Right," she says, a slightly sarcastic edge back in her voice, after the brief reprieve. "I'll keep in mind to go to your dad if I want to talk." She tosses her cigarette butt on the ground and squashes it thoroughly under her dingy flip-flop. "I'm going back inside. Hope you don't object too much to my presence in your home." Her tone, though sarcastic, is more teasing than he's used to from Leah and the old bitterness is barely present.

She stands up, and he finds himself glancing at her long legs as she stretches. He's seen Leah naked during their times on patrol together so long ago, and she's even been in his fantasies before, but she's always been too much of a bitch to think of anything more than casual sex with. She's attractive, of course, not that she seems to notice. Today she's wearing grubby denim cut-offs and an Aerosmith T-shirt that was probably born the same year she was.

She opens the door, and Jacob says, "Wanna bring me a piece of pie? I'll be in my garage."

She snorts. "I'm not your maid, Jacob, get your own pie, you lazy sack."

"I wouldn't say no to a sandwich, either!"

"Weren't you the one who was just making fun of my cooking? I haven't forgotten the look on your face when I said I'd made a pie -"

"I like turkey, and bacon, roast beef, pickles, cheddar, lettuce, onion –"

She laughs briefly. It's an unfamiliar sound. "Oh, fuck off."

"But no bologna. That shit is made of hooves. Or other lunch meat that fell on the floor."

"You should have your own comedy show. I can barely stand how hilarious you are," Leah mutters, rolling her eyes. "Any other ridiculous requests? Standing here with the door open is letting all the mosquitoes into your house."

"Seriously though, you should come see the Chrysler I'm working on." Jacob says, surprising himself. "You don't have to bring the pie and sandwich."

She turns around and looks at him quizzically, her hand still on the door. The moment of silence is long enough to be a little awkward. He realizes he probably overstepped some Leah-boundary by inviting her to engage in an activity that might be considered 'friendly'.

He's getting up to make himself scarce when Leah says finally, "Yeah, maybe later I'll come have a look."

He senses her presence at the door before she says anything.

"If there's bologna on my sandwich, I'm going to flip," he says seriously, without looking up from the task at hand (removing the steering wheel).

Leah doesn't say anything. When he does look up, she is empty-handed and looking more out of place than he's ever seen her. Her brow is furrowed and her hands are jammed in her shorts pockets. Frankly, the shorts are so tiny that he's surprised they can accommodate pockets at all.

"Well, hello there, sunshine," he mutters.

Leah stalks over and looks at the car. It appears the mood for witty banter has abandoned her.

"You're sure that's a car, huh?" she says dryly.

"Yup. I'd tell you what kind, but I'm guessing that beyond the word 'Chrysler', my explanation wouldn't mean much of anything to you."

"You were always a perceptive one, Jacob Black," she says without smiling. She flops over on the moth-eaten couch he keeps in the corner of the garage, usually for Quil and Embry.

"If you're squeamish, I'd avoid that couch," he warns. "That is, I've seen you turn into a giant wolf, so I'm thinking you're probably not all that squeamish about a few... well, mice, or rats, that may or may not exist."

"You're thinking right. After you've eaten a raw deer and had its entrails smeared all over your snout, there's not a whole lot more you can be squeamish about."

"Do you still change, ever?" Jacob asks casually. Maybe it's too personal a question. But then, she was the one who brought up the topic of Emily and Sam's baby.

"Never. Not since six months ago, when the bloodsuckers left. Why, do you?"

"No," Jacob says, "no, not lately. Not in the last few months. It's been kind of nice, I have to say, having my thoughts to myself."

"Someone with a face as expressive as yours could never have their thoughts to themself," Leah observes, but without venom.

"Easy for you. You want everyone to know what you're thinking, we could never get away from it before," says Jacob, a little stung.

Leah looks at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed slightly, but the snippy remark he's anticipating never comes. "Not anymore," she murmurs.

"Oh, yeah? I bet I could tell what you're thinking right now."

"I bet you anything you couldn't."

Jacob narrows his eyes and stares at her in mock concentration, pushing his index fingertips into his temples. "You're thinking..."

"Oh, this should be special."

"You're thinking how much you want to make me that sandwich!"

She laughs before she can stop herself. "This is why I like your dad better than I like you."

"Then why don't you go harass him, you lazy, cruel woman?"

Leah stands up. "I should probably get home anyway. I've been trying to make things a little easier on my mom by coming home before midnight these days." She heads to the door, turns around. "You'll probably see me when I visit Billy in a few days."

She leaves and he can hear her crappy little Jeep start up in his driveway.

"Night," he mutters, and turns back to the removal of the faulty steering wheel.

**A/N: Next chapter will be more fun, I promise :) thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hi! So my dividers didn't work on the last chapter, I'm now just using 'xxx' to divide pieces of the chapter. Also, I'm aware that Jacob isn't actually eighteen with the timeline I'm using, but for my purposes, he must be eighteen. Also, I still don't own Twilight or these sexy characters, or any of the other characters either. Enjoy :)**

Two days later, Leah is back.

He hears her Jeep struggling up the street from miles away. His werewolf hearing is still acute, but since he hasn't been shape-shifting, he's noticed it's started to fade a little bit. He can tell just by listening to her car that she isn't taking proper care of it. Maybe he should offer to help.

She lets herself in – no one in La Push bothers to lock the door - and calls "Billy?"

Jacob doesn't say anything. He's lying on his bed, poring over a Road & Track magazine and enjoying the fact that the house is so quiet and empty that he can hear the rain thrumming on the roof. He wants to feel irritated that she's wrecking his peace.

She appears at his door with rainwater dripping from the ends of her hair and an enormous bag of groceries balanced on her hip.

"Billy not around?"

"He's with Charlie."

"Oh," says Leah, "I wanted to make dinner for him."

"You could make me a sandwich instead," Jacob suggests.

"Don't you think that joke's getting a little bit tired?"

"Asking you, Clearwater, to make me a sandwich, is never going to get tired. I'd invite you in, but you look so much more comfortable standing awkwardly in the doorway."

"What a gentleman. So he's not gonna be back anytime soon?"

"I really doubt it. There's a Mariners game on and it just started twenty minutes ago."

"Huh." Leah says. "You know, I kinda miss Charlie. He's a nice guy. I wonder what on earth he did to produce that little wretch –"

"Don't start, please, Clearwater, I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you actually defending her? After all that shit she put you through?"

"What about letting bygones be bygones, Leah? It's time to grow up. I don't want to get into this."

Leah shifts her groceries to her other hip. "You're making me want to get into it. Have you really forgiven the wench for all that crap?"

"You know what, I figure she was just a girl who was crazy in love with a guy, same as I was just a guy who was crazy in love with her. I can't hold it against her."

Leah stares at him for a moment with a hard look on her face, leaning forward a little bit. It's a very combative position.

Then she straightens up. "Okay, well... I guess that's fair enough. But you aren't still in love with her, are you? I never understood that in the first place. She was such a_ bland_ wretch."

"No, I'm not in love with her anymore. Thanks for not making me talk about it, though, Clearwater, I appreciate it."

Leah gives him her new, signature wry half-smile. "If that's the case, maybe I'll be able to tolerate being around you."

After a remark like that, he expects her to stay, but she spins around and momentarily he can hear the gravel crackling in the driveway as her ill-cared-for Jeep sputters to life.

xxx

Jacob has a summer job. He's a grunt at a mechanic's in Forks, doing crummy jobs suited to men with much less experience with vehicles. It pays, by no means well, but it allows him to keep up his hobby of fixing old cars. It doesn't, however, make the summer pass any faster.

It's a week before he sees Leah again. He is in a foul mood this particular Tuesday evening, having endured a day of rude remarks from the mechanic that owns the place, John Dowling, and his sense of integrity is injured by Dowling's expectation that he regularly fleece the hell out of innocent customers. He's been threatened with the loss of his job. To add insult to injury, there is no air conditioning in the shop, and it holds heat like a silo, ending up ten degrees hotter inside than it is outdoors.

He doesn't see Leah's muddy black 4x4 in the driveway or her fraying summer shoes on the stoop. He stomps in the front door without even looking at Billy, and barely notices Leah at the table across from his dad. He doesn't say hello, just goes to his room, tears off his dirty uniform and puts on some shorts, not bothering with a shirt. He lets himself out the back door and trudges out to the garage.

It's a half hour before Leah wanders outside and into the garage.

"It still doesn't look like a car," she says, by way of greeting.

"Hello to you, too," Jacob grunts, without looking up. He's not in the mood.

"I certainly won't be taking any rides in this thing," she says conversationally.

"That's funny," Jacob snaps, "I don't remember inviting you to."

"Is it even going to run? I mean, don't quit your day job or anything."

"You know," Jacob says, finally looking up, "that pie you made was terrible."

"Fuck you. Next time you can't have any," she replies. "Do you want a Midol? I have some in my car."

"If you're going to be this much of a bitch, why don't you fuck off?"

He glares at her. She doesn't move, just looks at him. Her outfit is essentially the same as always, a large plaid lumberjack shirt and beat-up jean shorts that expose a lot of lean, tanned leg. Maybe he stares away from her eyes for just a little too long.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," she tells him before flopping down on his couch once again.

"I thought I told you to fuck off?"

"I heard you. Do you bring your girlfriends in here?"

Jacob sighs and turns back to his car. "Girlfriend is a pretty loose term; I don't know that I've ever had one of those. Yeah, I've brought girls in here. Billy's wheelchair can't make it back here."

"Naughty boy. Do you mean you actually convinced a girl to have sex with you?"

"Girls, plural. Yeah, of course. Why do you think I warned you about that couch?"

"Oh, that's fucking vile, I thought you were only talking about rats!"

"Sorry."

She looks at him speculatively. "You seem like you'd suck in the sack. Have you ever called one of them 'Bella'?"

"Not yet."

"You really are in a terrible mood, aren't you? You haven't made one stupid joke yet."

"Do you think you could stop harassing me? I had a bad day at work, all right?" Jacob turns his wrench a little too violently and ends up tearing off a vital piece of the brake mechanism. He swears viciously under his breath.

Leah snorts. "A bad day at work. I'm a waitress, sweet pea. You don't know a bad day at work till you've spent an eight-hour shift on a Friday night waiting tables at a 'family-oriented' establishment."

Jacob groans. Maybe he was better off before Leah decided she wanted to be friends, or whatever this bizarre relationship is.

xxx

It's been a long time since Leah's been inside Jacob's head. She doesn't know quite what to make of him anymore. She wonders briefly how much a person can grow up in the six months since she's had the intimate, shape-shifter connection with Jacob's mind.

She can see that he's grown up physically; at eighteen, he could pass for twenty-seven, a tall, well-built twenty-seven. Spending all the time she had with other naked male werewolves, another woman might be jaded; but Leah still finds his bare chest gratifying. And it has been six months since she's seen him _completely _nude, but he was certainly never disappointing in the below-the-belt category.

He doesn't honestly look like he'd be bad in the sack.

It's too bad he's in such a nasty mood. She is in a capricious kind of mood, feels like teasing, having had nine days to recover from the blow that was Emily's pregnancy. Little Sam Jr., fuck. It still rankles just a teensy bit.

"Have you seen Sam this week?" Leah asks.

"Yeah. He's absolutely nauseating to be around, though, since he found out about the baby."

"I can imagine," she mutters. "I don't know what's to be so excited about. If I was having a kid at my age, I'd probably hang myself."

"Yeah, well, once you've found your eternal soul mate, for good and forever, what's the point in waiting?" Jacob grumbles.

"Do I sense some bitterness?"

"Oh, please!" Jacob scoffs. "You better not start telling me about bitterness, Leah. _How _many years did you spend being bitter about that exact topic?"

"The Midol offer still stands."

Jacob wrenches a little too enthusiastically once more, severs another vital piece, sighs, and stands up. "I'm gonna go make something to eat. You want anything?"

"Any of my delicious pie left?"

Jacob feels himself flush slightly. Considering his earlier remark (a complete and utter lie, it must be admitted) that Leah's pie was disgusting, he'd finished it in one evening. "Naw, that went pretty fast."

Leah grins. Not just a weird half-smile like he's used to from her, a big, companionable, impish _grin. _"I thought it was terrible, Jacob."

He throws up his hands, feeling lighter than he has all day. "I can't account for Billy's warped sense of taste, all right?"

"Do you know that you are a horrendous liar?"

He has to laugh.

xxx

In the kitchen, Leah sits on the countertop and swings her legs like a little girl. The sight is completely alien to Jacob from a girl like Leah. His _sisters _did that, for fuck's sake.

"Making yourself right at home, are you?"

"Yeah," Leah says, "it's actually all I can do not to go into your fridge and start drinking juice right out of the carton."

"I guess I'm crossing the juice off my list of things I can drink. Were you the one that took a bite out of the last cinnamon bun?"

"I've been spending a lot of time here, actually, with your dad. I don't know how we never cross paths. "

"Because I work, maybe? What the hell do you want to talk to Billy about, anyway?" Jacob throws open the fridge and is disappointed by what he sees. He pulls out a container of hot dogs a few days past their Best Before date. Werewolves bounce back, right?

"Just stuff. Sam, and Emily, and La Push stuff, and Quileute stuff. And about you, and your sisters, and your mom and my dad. Mmm, hot dogs."

He looks at Leah again, long legs swinging back and forth into his cupboard doors. "Have you ever considered that maybe your ass isn't welcome on my countertop?"

"My ass is welcome wherever I say it is, and you'd best keep that in mind, kiddo."

This is a new Leah. It has been six months, so he doesn't really have a right to be surprised. Considering Sam fell in love with her, she can't always have been a bag. Jacob is forced to consider that he knew her not at all before Sam left her. He supposes Bitchy Leah must have been a pit stop on the way back to her current self.

He pops the hot dogs in the microwave – five for him, three for her – and can't help noticing that she's leaned over to look at the package and her shirt's bunched forward a little and he can see –

"I thought I told you something about taking a picture earlier?"

For the second time that evening, Jacob feels his face heat up.

Leah is smirking, but is kind enough not to say anything else on the matter. "Did you know these hot dogs are expired?"

"Werewolves, Clearwater. We bounce back," he mutters, realizing that in his distraction he has forgotten to fork the hot dogs as one of them whistles and explodes in the microwave.

"Jacob, you are something else. You make fun of my pie and you can't even cook a hot dog?"

He chooses to ignore her, popping the door open and placing the hot dogs on buns. He doesn't bother with plates and Leah doesn't seem to care, hopping off the counter and rummaging through the fridge for a moment. She emerges with barbecue and buffalo sauce and proceeds to smother her hot dogs in them.

Jacob watches her in a kind of awe, noting as she starts to eat that she is probably the least dainty female he's ever witnessed. She eats like Paul, to his ill-concealed delight.

Leah eating a messy, large hot dog with barbecue sauce on her face is probably the last sight he thought he'd ever find appealing.

He's almost too busy watching to realize she's stolen his fifth.

"You're a bitch, you know that?"

That grin again.

**A/N: Did it turn out okay? Tell me what you thought!**


	3. Chapter 3

Emily sets a plate of blueberry muffins down on the table and slides daintily into her seat. With no regard for manners and social conventions, Leah snatches one and begins to scarf it down. Emily has her shortcomings, but Christ, can the woman cook.

It is the twelfth day after the revelation of the pregnancy. Leah has been trying not to sulk about it, and Billy, true to his wise old self, suggested that to achieve that end, she visit Emily. Already, Leah regrets taking his advice and frankly can't believe she was stupid enough to come back to this house. As she chews, she plans her escape. She managed to wheedle the muffin recipe out of Emily earlier and therefore can leave as soon as possible.

Emily will not _stop talking _about the baby. She can't stop raving about the stupid little ultrasound, its pathetic little heartbeat, her plans for its little fucking bedroom and teensy-weensy fucking outfits. It's making Leah want to put her fist through the table, but she's been able to tune out a lot of it when she catches an unfortunate end to another run-on baby-oriented sentence.

" – if it's a girl, we want to name it Leah."

Leah doesn't actually spit out the muffin – it's pretty goddamned delicious – but it's a near thing. Instead she squawks "What?!" with her mouth full.

Clearly Emily mistakes her rage and horror for exhilaration.

"We were so close before, and you've forgiven me now, and I'm so happy. And you were one of Sam's best friends too – "

"I wasn't Sam's friend! I was his fucking _girlfriend_! The whole package, we kissed, we cuddled and we fucked!" Leah is on her feet. "There is no way in _hell _that I've forgiven you enough to watch my ex-lover chase around your fucking rugrat, calling her Lee-Lee!"

"Leah, I didn't mean – "

"What the fuck is wrong with you? What kind of animals are you two? Haven't you fucked me over thoroughly enough yet?"

"Be quiet, Leah! Watch your language!"

"As if my language is the biggest problem in this room, you sociopathic skank! It can't hear me, you know! Little tiny _Lee-Lee_ can't hear me say I hope a semi hits your house and does away with all of you."

Leah is out the door before Emily shrieks for her to get out.

Later, when she's parked in Jacob and Billy's driveway without the faintest idea of how she arrived there, Leah wonders if perhaps it wasn't the prospect of the baby's name that so enraged her.

xxx

Leah is sitting at the table across from Billy, recounting the events at Emily's house without meeting Billy's eyes.

She knows Jacob is in his garage and she's trying to put off seeing him as long as possible. She doesn't know why she feels like by not going in, she's somehow winning. She also doesn't know why she wants to go see the stupid kid so goddamned badly.

Billy is completely silent, and motionless, only moving when he picks up his coffee cup to take a sip . Leah doesn't want to talk about it really, but it's bothering her, the whole thing. The violence of her reaction to such a simple thing has frightened her, and she's been forced to admit that maybe it was the whole fact of the pregnancy that made her so angry.

When she's finished telling the nasty little tale, Billy agrees with her.

"Sounds to me like you're more upset at her for having a baby in the first place, when you..." He trails off, but she knows what he was going to say, what he omitted out of respect for her feelings, which are apparently more fragile than anyone believed. _When you can't have any babies of your own._

"I suppose you want me to go and apologize?" Leah says aggrievedly.

"Yes, that would probably be a good idea," Billy says, meditatively sipping his coffee.

"I'm not going back there," Leah informs him flatly.

"I thought you were trying to be less wrathful and cold?"

Leah looks at him for a moment. "I'm not going back there," she repeats, and then says "I need a cigarette."

Billy Black watches Leah disappear out onto his front step with a sigh.

xxx

Leah doesn't stay on the front step. She lights up her smoke and finally caves in to her desire to go see Jacob.

As usual, he doesn't bother to greet her when she approaches his garage. She knows he's heard their entire conversation. These are the complications of hanging out with the dads of other werewolves, she supposes.

"Can I smoke in here?" she asks. She doesn't know why she feels nervous standing in the doorway. For some reason, she really doesn't want him to be angry at her.

He's not facing her, he's (shirtlessly) studiously correcting some piece of machinery that Leah doesn't understand, and it's a while before he says "No."

She ignores his response and wanders in with her cigarette still lit. Instead of heading straight for the couch, she sits cross-legged on the floor next to him.

"I suppose you heard my sorry tale," she begins.

"Yeah," says Jacob, "yeah, I heard."

"And what do you think?"

"I think that I'm not going to get involved in whatever shit is between you and Sam and Emily."

Leah is a little bit relieved, but mostly annoyed that he's not showing any more interest than that.

Jacob continues not to look at her, but as he's tightening the bolts on his car he can't help but be distracted by the way her leg is touching him. He has no idea why she's sitting so close.

"I thought I told you that you couldn't smoke in here?"

"I ignored you."

There's silence again for a few moments while Jacob begins to pretend he's working on his car, when really he's just trying very hard not to think about Leah being pressed against him in a considerably more intimate fashion.

For the moment, he hates that she too is a werewolf. They can smell arousal. He knows because _he _can. In general, of course. Not on her, not right this moment. If he did, he'd have an even more difficult time not jumping her.

In a lame and ineffectual effort to distract himself (and possibly Leah, if she's caught on to his desire) he says, "Since you've stopped phasing, have you noticed that your senses have dulled a little bit?"

"Yes," says Leah warily, wondering where exactly he's going with this. He's sitting stiffly, completely unlike the Jacob she likes to think she knows. She realizes that she accidentally sat a little too close, but she can't imagine why he seems to be trying to edge away.

"Well," says Jacob, focusing hard on the topic at hand, "maybe since some of the, you know, werewolf-enhanced senses are fading, your... cycles will pick back up again."

"Did you just mention my _cycles_?"

Jacob winces. "Whoops, my bad."

"Jacob Black, what the _fuck _is the matter with you tonight?"

"It's this... alternator," he says, grabbing a random car part and waving it over-enthusiastically in her face.

Unfortunately for poor Jacob Black, Leah's senses have not dulled enough that she cannot smell the heavy arousal pheromones he is radiating.

Holy _shit. _He just wants to fuck her.

She shouldn't be surprised, not with his glances down her blouse or long looks at her legs, but this is different. This is hardcore.

Leah Clearwater doesn't blush. Or rather, _didn't _blush. As of tonight, Leah Clearwater officially blushes.

She is careful not to look up at Jacob and let him see how red her face has become. She is mortified by the rush of heat to her face, and even more so by how turned on _she _is by the fact that he wants her.

Her face isn't the only area of her anatomy that is suffering an unwelcome rush of heat.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she mutters without thinking. Now she understands why he was so stiff, and trying so hard to edge away. When she peeks at him out of the corner of her eye, she remembers that he's shirtless.

_Shit._

"Hm?" says Jacob, his head snapping up from his apparent reverie.

"Nothing," Leah mutters quickly. This is the most stilted and awkward their time together has ever been. And then, before she can do anything she knows she'll regret, Leah jumps up. "I have to go. My mom's expecting me," she lies, and is out the door like a shot, before Jacob can even reply.

She doesn't leave fast enough for Jacob to miss that she wants him, too.

Leah burns twice as much as usual in the car on the way home.

xxx

Leah does not want to think about Jacob.

She doesn't want to think about him while she's in the shower, or while she's in bed, unable to sleep. She doesn't want to think about him during downtime at work, or during the steamy sex scene on her mother's lame HBO TV show.

She doesn't want to imagine the way his huge, muscled body would feel on top of hers, on the hood of his car, on the couch in his garage, against the kitchen counter in his house. She doesn't want to think of the way his low moans would sound in the back of his throat.

And she _really _doesn't want to think about that dream she had about him, in which they spent some time together completely nude in the water at First Beach.

Leah doesn't want to think about these things, but she can't help it.

Leah makes a point of not going back to the Blacks' house for at least a week. When she finally does return, it's to make Billy another blueberry pie, and she only goes over when she sees that Jacob's car is missing from the driveway.

"When will he be back?" she asks Billy casually, before she commits to staying.

"Two hours, probably. He's got an eight-hour shift at Dowling's," says Billy, and then adds knowingly, "So will you stick around for a bit?"

Leah doesn't answer him, starting to unpack her pie ingredients. She makes awkward small talk, her discomfort in his home exacerbated by the fact that Billy seems to know exactly what is going on with her and Jacob.

Billy eventually wheels himself into the living room to watch the Mariners get their asses kicked by the Oakland As. Free of his scrutiny, Leah leans against the counter, momentarily abandoning the intricate art of making a flaky pie crust, to sigh and close her eyes.

She doesn't want Jacob to come home. Really, she _doesn't. _

And she really, truly _isn't _excited and thrilled and terrified when she hears his car roaring up the street an hour and a half earlier than Billy said he'd be home.

Leah panics momentarily and bends over the pie crust, driving her rolling pin into the dough with such violence that she tears it in half and sends one piece flying across the countertop. Her attempt to ignore the wild tingling in her stomach is in vain. When the door opens, Leah is viciously pounding the pie into a ball.

"That ball of dough really had it coming, considering how it treated you," is Jacob's wry greeting.

Leah ignores him and continues to pummel her pie crust with the vigor of someone fighting for their life. She hears and feels him approaching from behind her and stiffens perceptibly.

"Can I help?" he asks.

"You, who can't even make a hot dog?" she snarls, with more venom than she intends.

"Did I catch you on a bad week?"

"Fine, help," Leah says helplessly. She feels like a basket case. "Pour a cup of sugar into those blueberries."

She regrets her request instantly. To get to the sugar, he has to get into the cupboard underneath where she's working. He doesn't ask her to get out of the way and so she's trapped against the wall as he searches through the cupboard. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have his shoulder and most of his side pressed against her thigh, or if his face wasn't level with -

That unwelcome rush of heat again. _Fuck off, Jacob Black._

She can't leave this time, she's halfway through a pie, and Billy is in the living room. He can't see them, but he knows all the same.

"I can't find the sugar," he says. Does she detect a note of teasing? He's doing it on purpose.

"Never mind, I'll do it later," she says tersely.

Jacob stands up and leans down so he's looking her in the face, no matter how hard she tries to turn away. "Am I detecting the return of Leah the Bitch?"

"Would you drop it and _leave me alone_?" Leah cries. "I'm not here to see you!"

"You're kind of over-reacting here."

"I've been having a rough time lately, all right? I just came here to help your dad out, he likes my pie!"

"Yeah, I know that, I was just trying to – "

"I don't need your help, for fuck's sake!"

She's straightened up now and is looking him straight in the face, her pie and embarrassed avoidance of his eyes forgotten.

"Oh, I think you do," says Jacob evenly.

Leah gets the unpleasant (and simultaneously very pleasant) feeling that he's not talking about her baking. The intense look in his eyes is creating a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she hasn't known in a long time. She doesn't need to inhale to know that he wants her. And _how._

Hot and shivery all over her body, she begins to turn away to continue maniacally attacking her pie crust. Beyond that, she has no ideas. All thoughts have abandoned her.

At the same moment, Jacob moves swiftly towards her and seizes her hips, crushing her body against his and muffling her gasp of shock with his lips.

For a moment, Leah can do nothing but respond, throwing her arms around his neck and tangling her hands violently in his hair, grinding her body against his in a vain attempt to get closer, delighting in his moan that she feels rather than hears.

For a moment, every bit of frustration and desire that has been building in her is released, and all she can feel is how hot and hard and wanting he is. She bites his lip, hard, and he presses his hand against her ass, grinding her core heavily into his groin.

When his hand reaches her breast, Leah wakes up.

She pulls away, a real feat of strength considering how desperate Jacob seems to crush them together into a single entity. Panting, the both of them, Leah stares into his face for a second.

"I – "

She has done something wrong. She has gotten attached to Jacob Black, and he to her, and she has to leave now before she can mess up things further.

She says nothing as she runs out the door, leaving Jacob with the mess from her pie, a raging erection, feelings of shock at her response and misery at her departure.

Leah sleeps not a wink that night.


	4. Chapter 4

For a little while after Leah's untimely departure, Jacob considers Doing Something. Maybe he could call, or drive to her house, maybe show up at her restaurant like a psychopathic stalker. He does none of these things. At first, it's because he's stunned.

First of all, he's never been rejected, not if you don't count Bells, which was never a surprise anyway. He's also never been accepted so wholeheartedly, never had a woman react quite as vehemently to his advances as Leah. For that reason, he's especially shocked at the way Leah shoved him off and bolted, sparing him not a word, and only one wide-eyed glance.

He's never seen anyone look so much like a deer in the headlights.

He _knows _she wanted him. If sensing her arousal and discomfort wasn't enough, she reacted like an animal, her fingernails leaving long red marks along his neck, his hip bruised (momentarily) from where she crashed into him. She was fast, and violent, and he's never had anyone act like they wanted him that badly. It was _amazing. _For fifteen seconds.

After Jacob's finished with being stunned, he gets angry.

Leah Clearwater is fucking ridiculous. Who does that, rubs up against a guy like a cat in heat, and then bails? It's been a week. He hasn't heard a word from her.

She's a bitch, same as always.

Billy hasn't mentioned it, but in the irritating way that he seems to know all of Jacob's business, he seems to know about this, too. One evening, as Jacob is washing the dinner dishes and slamming them into the cupboard with a lot of anger and noise, Billy neglects to reprimand him. Jacob catches him staring at the back of his head.

Leah doesn't want to come over, or call, or talk to him again? Fine. Fuck her.

It would be so easy if only images of Leah didn't plague him every moment of every day. She was a fixture in his fantasies from a young age, and now that he's felt her slender frame grinding against him and her smooth hot skin under his hands, he can think of nothing else.

Over the week, he's been losing a lot of sleep.

xxx

Leah's panic lasts long after her flight from Billy's kitchen and Jacob's warm, eager flesh.

She accepts shifts at the restaurant every single day, in case Jacob thinks she's home and comes looking for her. She begs the hostesses to seat Jacob outside of her section in case he comes to visit her at work. She instructs Sue to tell Jacob she doesn't want to hear from or see him, in case he calls or comes to the door while she is at home.

Jacob does not call or visit or come to the restaurant in the seven days since she ran away, and Leah tells herself that she is relieved.

There is no relief, however, from her sexual frustration, and no lying to herself about it, either. She _wants _him, so much it hurts. Sometimes, during a hectic time at work, when a small child is throwing spaghetti at her and squalling for more juice while its parents look placidly on, she can forget him for a moment. Otherwise, she's fucked.

It is Friday, and Sue has made supper for Seth and Leah. It's lasagna, Leah's favourite, and while the smell of Sue's homemade lasagna is usually enough to drop Leah to her knees, she doesn't feel like eating.

"Leah, is there something going on?" her mother asks softly.

"Yeah, you've been really weird all week," Seth adds, slopping sauce down the front of his shirt like a four-year-old.

"No," Leah says a little too sharply, "I'm perfectly fine." She pushes her plate away and informs her family untruthfully that she is going to bed.

There won't be much sleep for her tonight, she knows, because there hasn't been much this week. She doesn't know what to do.

She opens her window and removes the screen, tossing it on her bed. Since she was a kid, she's always liked to sit on the little roof outside her second-floor bedroom window when she wants to think, or can't sleep, or both. Sue has forbidden her to do it on the grounds that she'll fall and break her neck, but that has never discouraged Leah, and now that she has super healing powers or whatever, it doesn't matter that she sits on the ledge.

The air isn't warm, not a big shock in Washington, but it's pleasant, and Leah never gets cold anyway.

She didn't want to get involved with Jacob Black, not that way. She wanted nothing from him at all when she started going to see Billy. In Billy Black she found someone to talk to that didn't shun her like the people her age, who found her cold and bitter, or behave warily around her, like her family. Sue and Seth always looked like they were waiting for a snake to strike when she spoke to them.

Mostly, Leah missed her father, with whom Billy had been the best of friends. He had never handled her with kid gloves.

She didn't get into it looking for love or even sex. She's slept with a few men since Sam, none of them anything special, and she's certainly not so deprived that she needs to curry sexual favours from Jacob Black.

But she liked talking to him. The little time they'd spent together over the few weeks since she learned of Emily's pregnancy had been the times she'd felt most buoyant in a long time. He was fun, funny, nothing like the angsty kid who'd been so caught on the hook of Bella Swan. And she, Leah, was something different too, lighter than the miserable young woman she'd once been. It had been nice.

But something has changed, much sooner than she expected, and there is no going back. She can see no more of Jacob Black and she cannot risk getting involved any further.

xxx

On Sunday, Leah is driving home from an eight-hour shift at the restaurant. She's tired and soaked due to the raging summer thunderstorm outside. She got no sleep the night before and is having a serious issue staying awake at her wheel. Fortunately, she has just gotten onto the rez when the unimaginable occurs. Her car dies.

Leah lets her head drop onto the steering wheel, blasting the horn as she unleashes a long string of _fucks. _It's not so much that she's far away from her house – really, it's only a fifteen-minute walk or so through a torrential downpour, but visibility sucks and she just knows some moronic teenager is going to end up hitting it if she abandons it for the night. The road is only one lane, after all.

Leah hears a car approaching and for one moment wonders if it will hit her and she'll be a goner. To her relief and dismay, though, the car pulls in behind her and stops, and she hears its driver emerge and tap on her drivers' side window. Blearily she looks up.

_Of course _it is Jacob Black. _Of course_ he has found her at the one moment she has no means of escape, and indeed will probably have to ask for his help. For fuck's sake.

Leah reluctantly opens her door. "Yeah?"

"It looks like years of not looking after your car have finally caught up to you."

"Go away," she says, unable to summon the energy to be any more unpleasant than that.

"You need help, don't you?"

"Not from you," she mutters. _Remember what happened last time you decided I needed your help? _Unfortunately Leah does remember, and the thought sends pleasurable shivers down her spine.

"Is your battery dead?"

"Presumably," Leah says shortly, turning away to smash her head on the steering wheel again. Being this close to Jacob Black is really bothering her. Particularly because of her strong desire to grab onto his shirt and yank him into the car with her and have her way with him in the -

"I have jumper cables if you want me to jump-start it for you," he says hesitantly.

"Really, I'm good."

"You're going to leave it here all night?"

"Will letting you fix my fucking car make you leave me alone?" she yells, whipping her head up from the steering wheel and giving him what she hopes is a glare blazing with anger, and not dripping with carnal desire.

Jacob looks startled, and then, dripping wet, backs away. "Yeah, it will, I guess, Leah."

xxx

Jacob's not mad anymore. He hates to admit it, but just seeing her filthy, rusted jalopy stopped in the middle of the road made him realize that he misses Leah's companionship.

From her reaction to his offers to assist her, the feeling is not mutual. But he can't very well leave her here in the middle of thunderstorm complete with frozen, driving rain. He knows she's a werewolf and perfectly capable of caring for herself, but it goes against his better nature.

He drives his car around the front of hers and hooks up his jumper cables. Leah eventually emerges from her Jeep to watch, and for a while, neither of them says a word. He tries hard not to notice that her clothes are soaked through and that her hair is dripping in an appealing fashion down her face.

He doesn't want to act like that kiss never happened. It's all he can think about, for fuck's sake. That, and doing it again, and tearing off her clothes and throwing her down on his bed and climbing on top of her and –

She's standing so far away.

"Thanks for doing this," she mutters, looking at the ground. "I should probably be going."

"Can we talk?"

"Is this the moment?" she asks dully. "It's nasty out here and I'm tired."

"You've been sleeping badly too, huh?"

"That isn't what I said."

"Come on, Clearwater, you're being ridiculous. You can't avoid me forever."

"Watch me."

"If you don't want to talk out here, we could go to my house – "

Leah laughs derisively and hates the way she sounds. "So you can molest me again?"

"You didn't seem to have that much of a problem being _molested, _if I remember correctly, sweetheart. It actually seems almost as if you_ reeeeally _wanted it."

"That whole thing was a momentary lapse of reason – "

"Did you just make a Pink Floyd reference while telling me off? You're my new hero."

"I don't want to get involved with you –"

"But you're picturing me naked right now, aren't you?" She blushes and he suddenly feels elated.

"Go home, Jacob. Leave me the fuck alone. I don't want you."

At that moment, it's not just that Jacob wants to fuck her. It's that he wants to hold her, and warm her, and feel the water dripping slowly out of her hair as he cradles her slim body to his chest. He can't stand how far she is away, and therefore takes a few steps in her direction.

"You're a really awful liar – "

"WOULD YOU FUCK OFF?" she screams. "Get away from me! What don't you understand!"

When Jacob doesn't move, in fact, simply takes another step closer, Leah bolts. She gets in her car, drives around his into the lane of traffic moving in the opposite direction, and speeds home like a drunk driver, leaving Jacob dripping miserably in the middle of the road.

xxx

Jacob's finished with Leah, he thinks. Finished making an ass of himself. There's only so much a person can take.

It's two days after Leah's latest flight, and Quil and Embry are visiting him in his garage, circling his vehicle and commenting on the bits he fucked up in his frustration. They aren't exactly what you'd call good company on a day that you're feeling morose.

"So, did you fuck her?" Quil asks.

Jacob twitches. "Leah? Nope."

"After hearing all Sam's thoughts about what she's like in the sack?! How could you pass up a golden opportunity like that?"

"What opportunity? There was no opportunity. She just came over to hang out with my dad and talked to me a couple of times."

Quil looks at him doubtfully and then concedes, "Well, she _is _kind of a freeze. And a bitch."

"Yeah, I'll say," Jacob says, trying hard to add conviction to words he doesn't truly mean.

Embry is studying Jacob, which makes him intensely uncomfortable. Embry has always been the more perceptive one.

"If you _had _fucked her, though," says Quil, appearing deep in thought, "she'd probably have torn you apart right afterward. Like that spider, you know, the one that eats its husband or whatever. What's it called?"

"A black widow," Embry says.

"Mmm," is Jacob's articulate response.

"Did you hear how she went off on Emily the other day? _What _a bitch," Quil continues.

"Yup," Jacob replies, trying to keep his voice neutral.

"Man, what is wrong with you today? You're such a downer! Is it just because you couldn't get in her pants?"

"That must be it," Jacob lies.

Quil gives him a dirty look and then says, "All right, well, I'm off. Let me know when you're feeling less like a boring depressed idiot. Coming, Embry?"

"Just a second," Embry says. "Go warm up the car."

Quil nods and leaves, and Embry gives Jacob a hard look.

"You like her, don't you?"

Jacob cannot summon a response.

"I mean, really like her, like not just want to screw her, but want her to be your girlfriend, and all that stuff. You do, don't you?"

Jacob can't help but remember what Leah said, that first day, the beginning. _Someone with a face as expressive as yours could never have their thoughts to themself. _He hates that she was right.

"No, I don't."

"You're a pretty shitty liar- "

"You just love your little romance stories, don't you? No, I don't _like _her, I don't want her as my fucking _girlfriend._ Get out of here."

"You know, Jacob," says Embry, with a large smile on his face that makes Jacob uneasy, "the only way you could've been more obvious would have been if you'd just said yes."

"GET OUT!"

Embry is laughing as he walks out the door.

xxx

"You're in love, aren't you?" Sue asks, sitting on the end of her daughter's bed.

"What! Mother," Leah says, almost wincing at the hugely false sound of her voice, "don't be ridiculous."

"Almost, then. You're _falling _in love with somebody."

Leah buries her face in her pillow.

"You are, aren't you?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Mom."

"Is it not going well? Because of everything that happened with Sam?"

Leah sometimes hates that despite all that's happened between them, her mother still knows her better than anybody else does.

"I think I can handle it."

"Not everyone's going to do what Sam did to you, you know, Leah," Sue tells her softly.

"Really, I don't want to talk about it."

"Whoever it is, maybe you ought to give him a chance."

"Goodbye, Mother!"

Leah shoves her face even harder into the pillow. She's _not _falling in love with Jacob.

Really. She doesn't want to feel him spooned against her body right now or feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back. She doesn't want to fall asleep on his chest.

It's not possible that she's making a mistake. It won't end well. She can't end up the way she was after Sam again. She doesn't want to be that person any more.

She _wants _Jacob.

She picks up her copy of _The Stand _and tries valiantly to read it, but her concentration is seemingly flawed beyond repair. She changes into her pajamas, flicks off the lights and gets into bed.

Her attempt at sleep lasts only fifteen minutes before she gets up, still in her camisole and flannel plaid PJ bottoms, grabs her car keys and runs out to her Jeep. In another two minutes she is sitting in Jacob's driveway, breathing heavily and just now remembering that she doesn't have a bra on.

No going back now. She gets out of the car, slams the door hard, and walks around the back of Jacob's house to his garage, where she can see the light is on and hear him tinkering with his car.


End file.
